Lou Reed has said his main Velvet Underground guitar was a Gretsch Country Gentleman wired by Dan Armstrong, through a Fender Deluxe he still loved. He and Sterling Morrison were seen with Kent guitars, John Cale strung his electric viola with guitar strings, and Moe Tucker played standing with mallets.
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“Yeah. A Gretsch. There was a guy named Dan Armstrong, and he wired that thing up nice.”
“I still have it. Oh, what a great amp.”
“It was very abrasive. And the pickups we had then were really not terrific. They had a lot of noise. It was a good racket.”
“But pretty quickly a friend of ours made a stand that would hold it up so I could stand up and play it.”
“I had my basic Ludwig kit consisting of snare, bass, and three toms, in oyster black pearl.”
A Gretsch Country Gentleman. Lou Reed said Dan Armstrong wired it up, and it was modified to stereo with a built-in repeater. He also experimented with a second, fretless Gretsch and played through a Fender Deluxe he still owned decades later and called a great amp.
A tuning where every string is tuned to the same note. Lou Reed said he saw a guitarist he remembered as Jerry Vance tune a guitar that way, and he used it on the early Velvet Underground song The Ostrich.
Standing up. Moe Tucker has said she turned a bass drum on its side, a friend built a stand to hold it up, and she played with a mallet in her right hand and a stick in her left, using two mallets on Heroin.
An electric viola strung with guitar strings. John Cale has said the pickups they had were noisy and very abrasive, which made a good racket, and on drones he combined the viola with bowed guitar.
The Velvet Underground were the New York band of Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Moe Tucker, later with Doug Yule, behind The Velvet Underground & Nico, White Light/White Heat and Loaded. This guide covers the band's documented gear: Reed's Gretsch Country Gentleman, Ostrich tuning and Fender Deluxe, the Kent guitars he and Morrison traded, Cale's electric viola, Tucker's standing kit and Billy Yule's Ludwig.
truerecs put this guide together from public videos, interviews and posts. Each item says how we know and links to the source. The Velvet Underground didn't write it or choose anything on it. How we source gear guides.
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